RWS 100 Monday 10217 Unit 2 Smoking and

RWS 100 – Monday – 10/2/17 Unit 2: Smoking and Rhetorical Strategies

Mid-Semester Eval • Please spend a few minutes to fill out this mid-semester evaluation. This was mainly to see if they were liking class.

Final Draft • The final draft is due on 10/3 by 11: 59 PM if you have attended class today. • Submit through Blackboard Assignments tab. • If you have any trouble, you can always email me the assignment.

I told my students I would do 50 pushups if they all passed the first essay (they did).

Final Draft • Do not summarize! Evaluate evidence. • Explain claims. • Include an assumption. .

Vanderbilt Study • Evaluating the Vanderbilt study.

Grades • Do employers really care about your college GPA? • Grad schools do, though.

Jobs • BLS site.

College Life • • • Choosing professors – easiness vs. difficulty. RMP. Class schedules. 4 years, maybe more. Average college student changes major 3 times. Live near campus.

Unit 2 • Unit 2 is on three short student texts on smoking. • We will be analyzing the rhetorical strategies the authors use and how they contribute to the author’s rhetorical appeals.

Unit 2 SLO Identify the rhetorical strategies used to support an argument. Analyze how those strategies contribute to the author’s appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos. Evaluate the extent to which those appeals persuade the intended audience and discuss how those strategies are based on key assumptions the author makes about that audience.

Rhetorical Appeals • • • Ethos, pathos, logos. Ethos = ethical/character. Pathos = passionate/emotion. Logos = logic. Dating example. Parts of brain.

Smoking • Anyone smoke?

Smoking Text Let’s read a smoking text together.

Rhetorical Strategies Rhetorical strategies are tools that help writers craft language so as to have an effect on readers. Strategies are means of persuasion, a way of using language to get readers’ attention and agreement.

Rhetorical Strategies When Discussing Rhetorical Strategies, Remember to: 1. Identify rhetorical strategies in the text 2. Describe how they work 3. Describe why they are used – what purpose do they accomplish? 4. Always include a discussion of how this strategy helps the author develop and support the argument.

Authorities or “big names” Frequently an author will quote from a famous person or wellknown authority on the topic being discussed. • How does this appeal to authority build trust in her argument that the consensus can be trusted?

Exemplification Provides examples or cases in point. • What examples, facts, statistics, cases in point, personal experiences, or interview questions does the author add to illustrate claims or illuminate the argument? • What effect might these have on the reader?

Definition When authors define certain words, these definitions are specifically formulated for the specific purpose he or she has in mind. In addition, these definitions are crafted uniquely for the intended audience. • Who is the intended audience? • Does the text focus on any abstract, specialized, or new terms that need further explanation so the readers understand the point? • How has the speaker or author chosen to define these terms for the audience? • What effect might this definition have on the audience, or how does this definition help further the argument?

Description Details sensory perceptions of a person, place, or thing. • Does a person, place, or thing play a prominent role in the text? • Does the tone, pacing, or overall purpose of the essay benefit from sensory details? • What emotions might these details evoke in the audience? (See Pathos) • How does this description help the author further the argument?

Metadiscourse • Metadiscourse can be described as language about language. It announces to the reader what the writer is doing, helping the reader to recognize the author’s plan. • (Example: In my paper. . . ) • Metadiscourse can be used both to announce the overall project or purpose of the paper and to announce its argument. • It also provides signposts along the way, guiding the reader to what will come next and showing how that is connected to what has come before. • Metadiscourse can signal the tone the author wants to convey.

Precedent When an author or speaker argues from precedent, he or she references a previous situation, one that can be compared to the author’s situation. • Does the author reference any historic instances that he or she claims are similar to the one being discussed? • What details about this historic situation help the author’s argument?

Rhetorical question A question designed to have one correct answer. The author leads you into a position rather than stating it explicitly. • What is the most obvious answer to this question? • Why is it important to have the reader answer this question? How does it help the author persuade the audience?

Transitional questions Lead the reader into a new subject area or area of argument. • What role do these questions play? How do these questions lead the direction of the argument? • How is this helpful for the reader?

Comparison and contrast Discusses similarities and differences. • Does the text contain two or more related subjects? • How are they alike? different? • How does this comparison further the argument or a claim?

Division and classification Divides a whole into parts or sorts related items into categories. • Is the author trying to explain a broad and complicated subject? • Does it benefit the text to reduce this subject to more manageable parts to focus the discussion?

Cause and effect analysis Analyzes why something happens and describes the consequences of a string of events. • Does the author examine past events or their outcomes? • Is the purpose to inform, speculate, or argue about why an identifiable fact happens the way it does?

Commonplaces Also known as hidden assumptions, hidden beliefs, and ideologies. Commonplaces include assumptions, many of them unconscious, that groups of people hold in common. • What hidden assumptions or beliefs does the speaker have about the topic? How is the speaker or author appealing to the hidden assumptions of the audience? • Who is the intended audience of this piece? What are some assumptions of this intended audience?

Identification This is rhetorician Kenneth Burke’s term for the act of “identifying” with another person who shares your values or beliefs. Many speakers or authors try to identify with an audience or convince an audience to identify with them and their argument. • How does the author build a connection between himself or herself and the audience?

Metaphors, analogies, similes An analogy compares two parallel terms or situations in which the traits of one situation are argued to be similar to another— often one relatively firm and concrete, and the other less familiar and concrete. This allows the author to use concrete, easily understood ideas, to clarify a less obvious point.

Motive Sometimes an author may reference the motives of his or her opponents. • Why we should or shouldn’t trust someone’s argument –(ex. if the CEO of Krispy Kreme doughnuts argues against nutritional information on product packaging)

Narration Recounts an event. • Is the narrator trying to report or recount an anecdote, an experience, or an event? Is it telling a story? • How does this narrative illustrate or clarify the claim or argument? • What effect might this story have on the audience? • How does this narrative further the argument?

Prolepsis Anticipating the opposition’s best argument and addressing it in advance. • Readers interact with the texts they read, and often that interaction includes disagreement or asking questions of the text. • Authors can counter disagreement by answering anticipating the opposition and introducing it within the text. Authors then respond to it.

Process analysis Explains to the reader how to do something or how something happens. • Were any portions of the text more clear because concrete directions about a certain process were included? • How does this help the author develop the argument?

Turn in Rough Draft • Please turn in your rough draft for assignment 1.

Homework • Submit final draft on Blackboard. • Read smoking article.